Waukesha leaders heading to Washington seeking funds for lake water

Waukesha officials will be in Washington, D.C., this week to remind the state's congressional delegation of the city's desire for $50 million in federal grants to help pay for a proposed switch to a Lake Michigan water supply.

Mayor Shawn Reilly will accompany Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak to meetings Thursday with U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), as well as Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).

Waukesha is asking Wisconsin and the other seven Great Lakes states to approve a diversion of up to an average of 10.1 million gallons a day of lake water by mid-century. Oak Creek has agreed to supply lake water to Waukesha if the diversion request is approved by each of the eight states.

Duchniak's fundraising goal is to obtain sufficient federal grants — primarily from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — to pay 25% of construction costs.

Cost of building pipes and pumping stations needed to carry the water to Waukesha and return most of it to the lake in the form of treated wastewater is estimated at $206 million, Duchniak said.

Waukesha is under a state court order to reduce radium levels in drinking water distributed to its customers by June 2018. The city would stop using wells drawing radium-tainted water from a deep sandstone aquifer if the diversion is approved.

About Don Behm

Don Behm reports on Milwaukee County government, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, the environment and communities in southeastern Wisconsin. He has won reporting awards for investigations of Great Lakes water pollution, Milwaukee's cryptosporidiosis outbreak, and the deaths of three sewer construction workers in a Menomonee Valley methane explosion.